The invention relates generally to power switching, and more particularly to an electrically isolated microelectromechanical system (MEMS) power switch gate driver using optical power and gate drive signal delivery.
Electrical gate drives have been developed for controlling semiconductor switches used for energizing a load. The gate drive is electrically coupled to an external voltage source via at least two electrical conductors. A drawback with this design is that electromagnetic interference (EMI) can degrade operational performance of the gate drive by inducing undesired voltages and/or currents in the conductor. This condition can create two types of problems: 1) unintentional turn-on or unintentional turn-off of the gate drive, and 2) electromagnetic radiation from high frequency currents flowing down the wires.
A need therefore exists for an improved gate drive mechanism that can be optically powered and controlled and that reduces and/or eliminates the foregoing deficiencies.